Berlin Gets More Federal Funds To Help Revive Troubled Neighborhoods

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Berlin is getting a $1 million grant to continue a program that started last year and took one of the city’s worst neighborhoods and gave some of it a fresh start. Chris Jensen reports.

Champlain Street is just a few blocks from the old pulp mill in Berlin. Decades ago - when that mill was going full tilt – this was a stable, energetic neighborhood.

But as Berlin’s economic fortunes declined this area crashed.

“So, when you are looking at the eight buildings over here what you saw was a desolated neighborhood.”

That’s Andre Caron. He’s the Housing Coordinator for The City of Berlin.

The problem was that landlords got so little in rent that they found it cheaper to simply leave property rather than fix it up.

“And what we as a city were seeing is the abandonment getting bigger and bigger.”

It was, Caron says, Berlin’s worst neighborhood.

That’s where the federal government’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program came in. It was created under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.

Its goal is to reduce the number of foreclosed and abandoned buildings, provide affordable and quality housing and incidentally give the economy a little boost.

In New Hampshire the program is administered by the Community Development Finance Authority.

In 2009 the state received just over $19 million.

Berlin received almost a quarter of the money.

The city formed a public-private partnership with New England Family Housing and used $2.2 million to revitalize this neighborhood.

New England Family Housing bought 11 buildings around Champlain Street for about $300,000.

That included about 25 rental units.

The buildings were a mess. An argument could have been made for just tearing them down.

But the goal was resuscitate an old Berlin neighborhood not obliterate it.

Amy Currie is with the Community Development Finance Authority.

“We wanted to keep the historic nature and keep true to what Berlin actually is and not just tear it down and build new.”

Kevin Lacasse is the owner of New England Family Housing.

“They were in really bad condition when we bought them. They were not habitable.”

Lacasse says he didn’t see any way he could fix up the buildings and collect enough rent to break even.

“The economics certainly didn’t work without the infusion of the grant capital.”

That $2.2 million grant went to solve a lot of problems.

“When we got them the buildings had problems where they were contaminated with lead, they were contaminated with asbestos, contaminated with mold, the structures, some of the roofs were holes in the roof so there was water pouring into them.”

The money was used to fix up the buildings while providing an economic boost to local contractors and suppliers.

Lacasse says there was a particular emphasis on making the buildings energy efficient.

“We are on the hook to own these for 25 years so when we did the renovations we paid particular energy attention to the energy upgrades to the buildings because the biggest expense on these buildings in Berlin and the reason why there has been so many foreclosures is that the price of oil has gone through the roof to the point where it is more expensive to heat the buildings than there is in rental income.”

In exchange for the grant Lacasse promises to own them for 25 years and charge affordable rents.

For example, a three bedroom apartment with one bath and roughly 900 square feet rents for about $750.

The federal government sets guidelines for how much money tenants can make.

All the units are rented.

Andre Caron, Berlin’s Housing Coordinator, says the project has given the neighborhood a new look and a second life.

“All this degradation got turned around and that is what is so good about this program.”

The surrounding area is still pretty gritty and there are some abandoned buildings. But officials figure it is a start. They hope people who own buildings or live in the area will begin to spruce things up.

New England Family Housing recently bought two additional buildings on its own.

Part of the new million dollar grant will be used to fix up two more buildings in the same neighborhood and one elsewhere.